Time Capsule Goals

I sometimes like to write down my goals and imagined future so that in a year, or five, or ten, I can look back and see what’s changed, what’s worked out and what’s stayed the same.

So right now, academically, this is my plan (since I don’t want to plan who I marry when and how I have kids and where I live):

I’ll be commencing my 4 years BA in German at University of Oxford this coming October, including a year abroad in a German-speaking country. Though Oxford has links with Bonn, I will hopefully be pushy enough to persuade them to give me either the whole year in Munich, or 6 months Munich, 6 months somewhere else. Perhaps Berlin, or, if I’m really persuasive, somewhere further afield – I’m thinking anywhere from Wellington to Amsterdam. This degree, though I am not expecting it to inspire me much, will hopefully interest me and give me a boost in my future. I want to meet friends and start lots of new things. Like sport. And Spanish dancing. And maybe pottery.

After that, an MA in Anthropology (Social), and I’d quite like this to be outside the UK. Right now I’m leaning towards Canada. I don’t want to be tied to just German for ever, and I certainly don’t want to be tied to the UK.

This is where it gets vague. I’d like to do a PhD, largely because it’s necessary in order to even consider become a University lecturer/professor in something people-related (Anthropology, Modern Languages, Ethnology…). However, I don’t know if this work will interest me in ten years. I’ve heard staffroom politics are very important and I hate that kind of bullshit. So PhD is still up in the air.

Other things I’m thinking about are: working for the UN, an organisation like Liberty or an NGO; working in the tourism and travel sector anywhere in the world; working for the EU in the capacity of helping improve how immigration works, and allowing people to have the lives they want, not just the lives the Western governments deem appropriate and desirable; doing TEFL (though that’s not really a long-term thing).

I know I want to travel, and I know I want to help people. But I have no delusions of grandeur, no superhero complex. I’m not charismatic or tough enough to approach the Big Guys, but I am a good teacher and a good linguist, and since I believe that speaking a language of business (be that English, French, Spanish or whatever) will really help people both financially and personally. I love multiculturalism and want to make supporting it my life work.

And I didn’t know that before I typed that sentence.

My life goal at the moment: to support multiculturalism!